


right, so it's a fluke?

by euphonie



Category: Fate: The Winx Saga (TV), Winx Club
Genre: 3+1, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Farah's Feelings, Gen, Growing Up Together, Happy Ending, Headmistress Rosalind, Healing, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Introspection, Old Marrieds, One Shot, Slow Burn, Teachers with Hearts of Gold, The Golden Trio, War Leaves Wounds, chosen family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29190255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphonie/pseuds/euphonie
Summary: “She thought we might get secretly married,” Farah says, pushing the last of her strength into the wall of energy that will hold Rosalind in stasis. "Why would she think that?"Saul wipes the sweat from his brow and slowly re-sheathes his sword. "No clue."(or, three times the people around them assume Farah and Saul are something ~more~ and the first time they're finally right).
Relationships: Andreas & Farah Dowling & Ben Harvey & Saul Silva, Bloom & Farah Dowling, Bloom & Sky (Winx Club), Bloom/Sky (Winx Club), Farah Dowling & Rosalind, Farah Dowling & Saul Silva, Farah Dowling/Saul Silva
Comments: 15
Kudos: 139





	right, so it's a fluke?

**I. they’re back for another year at alfea…**

…and Farah _does not understand_ how she’d gotten into this mess. She is quiet in the shadow of an ancient archway, all long limbs and sharp eyes as she watches her suitemates get pulled deeper into the unfolding revelry. She watches them throw their heads back in abandon, limbs moving freely and smiles stretched wide as they release the pent-up stress of imminent and likely death. She frowns, knowing the responsibility of their safe return to the suite rests with her, but cannot help softening at their happiness. They so rarely get to be carefree. Rosalind would certainly have their hides, if she saw them so relaxed (or _heard them_ , she winces, _singing along to the music so loudly and off-key_ ).

Silva knows it, too. The Specialist is flush with the success of his party, arm slung around his golden-haired best friend and magnanimously directing ( _ordering!_ ) groups of revelers towards new corners of the festivities. Where he had found the kegs of Solarian mead, she didn’t know, nor how he had gotten them to and then across campus with no one the wiser. The idiot is dressed like a bumblebee, which she can only guess is some demented nod to an in-joke amongst the Specialists. She wouldn’t know – Rosalind keeps the Specialists separate for their early studies, sending them on grueling treks and survival missions while she pushes (and _pushes and pushes_ ) the fairies to hone their magics.

Of late, Farah has hardly seen her fellow fairies, either. Rosalind has singled her out for some reason, telling her in sharp tones to look into extra reading and attend special dueling sessions with the older students. Farah has never worked so hard in her life, and the guilt of attending the party gnaws at her, because she knows she should be in her room, studying, practicing, resting, _anything_ that will earn her Rosalind’s approval. She just wants to please the Headmistress. Rosalind had, after all, chosen her from the realms personally, and taken a chance on her when no one else would.

Something oddly fuzzy snaps her out of her reverie. An antenna from Silva’s costume brushes against her ear, and she rolls her eyes as she steps away from him. _Leave it to Silva to bring the party to her_ , she grouses.

“Why’re you over here?” he asks incredulously, “Dowling, the party is over _there_ ,” eyes wide for emphasis as he gestures. His antennae seem to quiver with indignation.

Softly – because she can never seem to speak with a spark, though she is learning that soft does not have to mean _weak_ – she replies, “I have to get the others home. It seemed safer for sobriety, over here.”

“Farah,” he says, and has he ever said her name before?, “it’s a _party_. This is the _point_. Mistakes are encouraged. Required, even!” He grins, firmly taking her hand, pressing a drink into it, and then keeping his hands over hers to make sure she takes hold of the bottle.

She shifts shyly, unsure how to explain that she knows no other armour than her composure, and that free-flowing drink and song and dance puts that barricade at risk of crumbling. She hasn’t bothered to see what lies beneath her façade in some time, and does not care to – not now, when her training is going so well and she is beginning to feel like she _belongs_. But for some reason, his hands are still on hers, and she feels reluctant to dampen his obvious earnestness. _Maybe_ , she thinks, _one drink wouldn’t be so bad_.

She is saved from answering him by a tipsy light fairy who skitters into them, jolting them apart. “Oh my God!” she babbles at them, “I’m so so sorry! I’m sorry, I totally didn’t mean to interrupt!” The light fairy is glowing as she blushes, backing away from the corner that is apparently now theirs. “Sorry! Uh, great party, Saul! Keep doing whatever you’re doing!”

Farah startles as if waking from a dream. _What were they doing? Were they doing something?!_ She turns her shocked stare onto Silva, who maintains his now-respectful distance. His wry smile, though, burns right through her, as does the lingering heat of his hands on hers.

**II. andreas…**

…hurls it at them like an insult, angry beyond measure that Saul had failed to kill the Burned One, and injured himself in the process. Farah is also fuming – she’s never even _seen_ a lovebird – but – _a voice whispers from near her heart_ – her rage comes more from fright and concern than anger, as she watches Ben stitch Saul whole again. _She is more than capable of taking care of herself_ , she steams, _after all, isn’t she the only member of the team that can kill Burned Ones without aid?_ Her mind can do so much more than the Specialists’ brawn, and yet, as a woman, she feels the protective eye her teammates cast over her every time they enter battle. Saul, she suspects, is not reckless merely because of chivalry. She’d gotten a flash of his emotions as he’d rocketed in front of her, so strong that her focused powers were momentarily blinded by a surge of ragged _determination_ and utter _fear_ that were not her own. She will, in the shower later, as the adrenaline finally leaves her veins, slowly begin to realise that the surprising depth of his emotions is mirrored by her own.

What exactly those emotions are she doesn’t know – neither his nor hers. In their years since Alfea, she has learned that Saul keeps his true thoughts as close to the chest as she does, albeit cloaked in boisterous banter and long, patriotic speeches rather than her unflappable calm. It is an equally effective defensive technique, she reckons, if not perhaps better, in its ability to distract and redirect the attentions of those around them. 

They are, the four of them, a single unit. She knows that in her bones. She can feel them all, faintly, at any given time – Ben pouring over books in the greenhouses, Andreas hacking away at practice dummies in the yard, and Saul ( _always Saul_ ) out patrolling the Alfean perimeter. She cares so much for them. She’d die for them, even. But she doesn’t think she could bear to see Saul die for her. She can see him so clearly when she closes her eyes – from the brightness of his blue eyes to the gentle curve of the smile she knows is just for _her_ , to the strong slope of his shoulders and deceptively relaxed stance of his legs. He is, more often than she’d like to admit, the last thing she sees before sleep takes her ( _and the first person she hopes to see outside her tent the next morning_ ).

She’ll have to have a talk with him, someday. Definitely, maybe. But not today.

**III. baby terra…**

…is a bright-eyed, open-hearted, _cloud_ of a child, and Farah finds it impossible to remain impervious to her charms. The girl is enamoured of her femininity, so unlike the only other beings in her life. Terra follows her around the castle like a duckling, mesmerised by the swish of her skirts, or, if Farah lets her get close enough, by the long wisps of her hair. Farah has grown fond of Terra’s pudgy little fingers, always grasping but ever gentle: more often than not, they’re buried whole in the dirt she knows will eventually end up smeared on her scarf or gingerly prodding a flower bud that has not yet bloomed. The girl is impatient, Farah has noted, her teacher’s mind already planning how best to show the child control when all Terra wants to do is give and give and give.

Terra has, of late, taken to gifting everyone plants. The little one has found that she can think of a flower and it will grow, and nothing pleases her more than draping her father in long-stemmed irises to show the world his wisdom, or wreathing Sam in poison oak if he tugs too hard on her short hair. Sky has, more than once, shown up to their small family dinners positively reeking of peonies, a sweet-smelling aftereffect of Terra’s insistence that the lanky blond should be less bashful.

Tonight’s dinner is unusually quiet – it’s just her and Saul, and little Terra. Ben has taken the boys camping up river, partly to preserve her sanity and partly because Saul had made an absolute mess out of giving Sky and Sam _Th_ _e Talk_. She hadn’t thought that Saul’s eternal font of advice could dry up so spectacularly, but she and Ben had both agreed that his awkward analogies and use of advanced weaponry to diagram would probably lead to more teenage accidents than not, if left uncorrected. _And under no circumstances_ , she thinks with some alarm, _can such a task be entrusted to even her most mature male students_.

In a rare nod to sentimentality, Farah has brought in a vase of cheery yellow roses to grace their table, knowing that Terra would likely be somber tonight because she’d been left behind. The child was, after all, their bright ray of sunshine, and deserved the sort of plants that looked the same. It had taken her some trouble, that morning in the garden, to tap into the simple, tender magic needed to make them grow. So many years since Rosalind, and still her best work brought destruction and dominance. Perhaps she could learn from the children how to be a child, even after all this time. Certainly, her childhood had not afforded her the chance.

Terra’s watery smile turned bright is well worth it. At dinner that night, with Saul running late, the young girl’s mood had lifted upon noticing the flowers, even more so when she realized what her aunt would not say (that they were for _her_ and her _alone_ because she was _loved_ so ever much and smelled _much_ better than the boys). As it is, Farah is locked in the child’s tight embrace when Saul finally saunters in from sparring with the senior Specialists.

Helplessly entangled, Farah tries to shrug in his direction, and Saul, always quick to smile despite all they’d seen, simply beams at them both. He offers her no aid, seemingly content to let her be strangled to a kind and gentle death.

“Don’t I get a flower, Miss Dowling?” he drawls, collapsing into the chair next to hers and eyeing the yellow rose clutched in Terra’s small fist.

She scowls as best she can from beneath Terra’s brown hair. _Fine_ , she thinks _, two can play that game_.

In a flash of magic, Farah sends another rose from the vase sailing towards Saul’s face. She is pleased to see him slow to catch it, and beyond satisfied to see him splutter through buttery petals. Terra, however, chooses that moment to gasp loudly and lunge at Saul, snatching the rose from between his calloused fingers.

“No, Auntie, you can’t give him _that_ ,” she cries, “yellow roses are just for _friends_.” And she scrunches her round face, turning the bloom a deep red before handing it back to her dumbstruck uncle. “See,” she pronounces into the adults’ silence, “isn’t that better?”

**IV. the beginning**

It’s a simple handfasting, in the end, at the stone circle on the night of a new moon. Farah feels almost frozen by the dozen or so pairs of eyes upon them, but the warmth of Saul’s hands over hers keeps her rising social anxiety in check. Two decades running Alfea have left her immune to large crowds, but there is a world of difference between the Headmistress’s authority and Farah’s feelings laid bare. 

She takes a slow breath to steady herself, and looks around. Sky seems like he might burst into song, while Bloom appears not to notice that she is emitting stray sparks from the tips of her hair as she wiggles with happiness at the tableau before her. Terra has crowned her with flowers yet again, with a circlet of delicate ferns and orchids and water lilies, and Stella has used her recovering magic to create a constellation of soft lights overhead. How can she still be scared to show herself, in the face of such affection? She knows, finally, that no evil power can take this – take _them_ – from her. The long winter of their lives has truly given way to spring.

Farah is surrounded by those she loves, and tonight she marries the one she loves most. She has both dreamed of this day, and refused to consider it possible. But, she is learning still, after so many years of teaching: _nothing_ _is impossible._ She supposes Bloom has taught her much of that, but so too has the man before her, with his steady, steady love.

There will be time later, wrapped in warm sheets and warmer limbs, to reflect on the novelties of peacetime and when, exactly, she and Saul went from being an idea to an inevitability. To wonder why, after everything she’d done, she could possibly deserve to have so much happiness. To plan with Ben how to convert the East Wing war rooms into a garden of remembrance, and to strengthen the barrier with the primal magic of her love for her students such that it never fails again.

 _But for now_ , Farah thinks, letting her eyes drift shut as Saul pledges his troth and dips his head to kiss her, _this is enough_.

**Author's Note:**

> I've literally never written anything fictional before, but I love these two so much and couldn't wait for fic. If anyone would like to beta this please do! And leave kudos and/or comments if I should do more fics :)
> 
> Some other notes:
> 
> I. This is the first annual Specialists' "debauched kegger" which Farah mentions Saul started, somewhere in episode three.  
> II. You KNOW this had to have happened at least once.  
> III. Poor bb Terra having to deal with growing up as the only girl! I like to think that gives her a special bond with Farah, who likely serves as the closest thing to a maternal figure she has. Flower meanings taken from the Victorian language of flowers, here: https://www.bestblooms.co.nz/blogs/Do%20Flowers%20have%20a%20Meaning%3F  
> IV. Handfasting is "especially associated with Germanic peoples, including the English and Norse, as well as the Scottish Gaels. As a form of betrothal or unofficiated wedding, it was common up through Tudor England; as a form of temporary marriage, it was practiced in 17th-century Scotland" ty wikipedia


End file.
